Gain Despite Pain

Mathew Rudes got the ride of his 12-year-old life Thursday when officers from the LAPD’s Devonshire Division took him for a spin around the block in a cruiser with its lights flashing and siren blaring.

“That was funner than heart surgery,” Matt said as officers helped him out of the black and white and into his wheelchair.

The wisecrack was an observation from a boy who has undergone surgery 10 times--including two heart operations--to correct maladies associated with neonatal Marfan syndrome, a condition he has suffered since birth.

The rare affliction, caused by a spontaneous genetic mutation that weakens the body’s connective tissues, has severely affected Matt’s heart, bones, spinal column and vision. Matt is one of only a few children who have lived as long with the condition, although many with the syndrome lead relatively normal lives.

Still, the Northridge youngster seemingly has learned to live not only with agonizing spinal pain, weakened muscles and elongated limbs, but to rise above the conditions with wit and wisdom beyond his years.

“Every day I have pain episodes, and I have to find out different ways to cope with it,” Matt told a group of police officers, relatives and news crews gathered at the police station. “The pain can’t live your life . . . you have to overcome the pain.”

If Matt was in pain, it was barely noticeable as he traded quips with officers at the front desk, checked out the lockup and propped up his feet on the desk of Capt. Joseph Curreri, the division’s commanding officer.

As he was wheeled down a corridor past a shoeshine stand, Matt joked that he thought it was the electric chair.

With officers supporting him on either side, Matt climbed four flights of stairs to the roof where Air Support Division officers had landed a police helicopter.

Sitting in the cockpit, Matt donned a helmet and gripped a control stick as Officer Paul Holmen explained the dials, switches and knobs on the instrument panel.

“There’s nothing like a mom for a back-seat driver,” said Matt’s mother, Carol Rudes, as she clambered onto the rear seat.

Matt sat in the chopper for a long time. He appeared to savor every minute away from his normal routine of taking medication and keeping doctor’s appointments.

To get through Thursday’s visit without suffering excruciating pain seizures, Rudes said Matt’s doctors instructed him to take twice his normal dosage of pain medication.

Beyond the medication, Rudes prepared her son for the hectic day by having him sit quietly by candlelight on Wednesday night. “It was an evening of rest and relaxation to get him ready for his big day.”

On Thursday morning, Rudes said Matt was “just really excited” and tried to keep him calm by encouraging him to recite a poem as they prepared to leave.

At the station, Matt met officers assigned to the Los Angeles Police Department’s K-9 and bicycle units, saying he liked cops because he always loved Andy Griffith, who played a small-town sheriff on the old TV show “Mayberry RFD.” “I’m sure you’ve got your share of Barneys,” he cracked, referring to Griffith’s befuddled deputy.

Matt was also given LAPD T-shirts, hats, model squad cars, pins, badges, ID cards and a $1,000 oversized check from Rite-Aid executives, the first donation to the UCLA Pediatric Pain Program in Matt’s name.

Store officials learned about Matt’s condition through pharmacy technician Valerie Mastro, who befriended Rudes when she came in to the Granada Hills store to get her son’s prescription filled.

Mathew’s prescriptions are so difficult to fill that Rudes said one pharmacy refused to serve her, and another charged her extra because it didn’t know how to do the insurance billing properly.

To fill Mathew’s prescriptions, pharmacy employees must perform complicated manual overrides in the computer, follow special insurance billing procedures and register the medication in a government log.

Mastro figured out the system and began filling the orders in one-quarter the time it used to take others.

Talking across the counter, the women grew close.

In bits and pieces, Mastro heard about Matt’s 175-page novel and collection of short stories. She learned he had been a student in a gifted class before the attacks of pain that forced his mother and father, David, to home-school him.

“[Valerie] was so moved. She would come home crying after hearing about Mathew,” said her husband, Dan Mastro, an LAPD sergeant assigned to the Devonshire station.

For no reason other than “wanting to do something nice” for Matt, Valerie Mastro said she asked her husband to send a patrol car to Matt’s house and take him for a ride.

Instead, in addition to sending a patrol car, Dan Mastro invited officers from LAPD’s Air Support Division and the K-9 and traffic units for Thursday’s event.

Although it was Dan Mastro’s idea to combine the visit with a fund-raiser for Matt, it was Matt’s idea to designate the funds for further research into pediatric pain management.

Before getting into his mother’s car at the end of the two-hour visit, Matt said he couldn’t thank the Mastros and the officers enough.

“I am going to remember this day for the rest of my life,” he said.

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Contributions can be sent to the UCLA Pediatric Pain Program, 22-464 MDCC, 10833 Le Conte Ave., Los Angeles 90095-1752. Checks should be made payable to UC Regents c/o UCLA Pediatric Pain Program--the Mathew Rudes Fund.

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Marfan Syndrome

A single, abnormal gene is the cause of the syndrome, which affects at least 40,000 people in the U.S. Although the most visible evidence of the condition is disproportionate growth, the most dangerous effects involve the cardiovascular system. The mitral valve on the left side of the heart can leak, and people with Marfan syndrome can suffer from irregular heart rhythm.

Medical problems associated with Marfan syndrome:

Eyes

* Lens dislocation

* Nearsightedness

Cardiovascular system

* Irregular heart rhythm

* Mitral valve leakage

* Tears in aorta wall

Skeletal System

* Disproportionate growth

* Abnormally shaped chest

* Loose-jointedness

* Curvature of spine

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Sources: National Marfan Foundation